


Liminality

by trashsshi



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Enemies to Lovers, Heavy Angst, M/M, Manipulative Relationship, Reincarnation, Revenge, Vampires, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-15 14:14:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,363
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28814715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trashsshi/pseuds/trashsshi
Summary: Baekhyun extends his own lifespan by killing his soulmate every time he reincarnates. This time, Jongin is intent on making Baekhyun fall in love with him and exacting revenge.
Relationships: Byun Baekhyun/Kim Jongin | Kai
Comments: 3
Kudos: 25
Collections: Swords and Hearts 2020





	Liminality

**Author's Note:**

> **Code:** SAH382  
>  **Prompt:** Soulmate AU where you don't age until you find your soulmate. A has been killing his soulmate for centuries now to reign eternal. B is born again, and this time he will make A love.  
>  **Disclaimer: This is a work of fan fiction and none of the characters are owned by Swords and Hearts. All creative rights and ownership of this particular work of fiction lie with the respective authors.**
> 
> **Author's Note:** I love this prompt, so here we go!

Baekhyun’s appearance was deceptive. He looked misleadingly harmless. Occasionally someone mistook him for a pushover, and lived (or died) to regret it. Baekhyun may have fluffy pink hair like spun candy floss, wear oversized pastel sweatshirts and the sweetest smiles, but Baekhyun was deadly. Like poisoned candy. Sehun was in the habit of saying ominously, “Candy can choke you,” to anybody who called Baekhyun cute or commented on Baekhyun’s candy-shop scent. And Baekhyun let Sehun get away with it because they’d been friends for nearly a third of his life. How the heck did Sehun live long enough to be friends with  _ Baekhyun _ for a third of his life? Well, Sehun was a vampire. His mortality was stretched over centuries. And Baekhyun… Baekhyun simply added to his lifespan over and over. Baekhyun stretched his mortality manually. Also over centuries.

And he accomplished this by murdering his soulmate every time they reincarnated. Soulmates, according to all the dictionaries in their world, were ‘those destined to grow old together.’ When people turned twenty-four in planetary years, they stopped aging, only resuming once they found their soulmates. “It’s a system to prevent people dying of old age before they have a chance with their soulmates, I suppose,” joked Sehun; but it wasn’t strategic any more than the sun rising in the east was strategic. At least, Baekhyun supposed there was no mastermind behind the soulmate system because Baekhyun didn’t believe in God or any similarly powerful entity governing their world.

When Baekhyun turned twenty-four, he decided he never wanted to age at all. He liked where he was in life. He liked the flexibility and energy of his body, he liked the lovely smoothness of his skin. Most of all, he liked the idea of the future extending endlessly before him. The power. The possibilities. He would never fail, never watch his life go to waste. Nothing would hold him back if the dead end of his life kept getting delayed forever.

And if murdering his soulmate was what it took to keep his own life going, to keep his youth intact, then Baekhyun would do it. He put nobody above himself, not even his soulmate.

When he turned twenty-four, Baekhyun enjoyed his life the way he did all the previous years. Except, of course, something was different this year. This year, the possibility of a soulmate entering his life had come into being. Baekhyun didn’t know when he’d meet his soulmate- it could be in a year or in a decade- but one thing was for sure. Baekhyun meant to enjoy his life in the meanwhile.

And when his soulmate showed up, Baekhyun meant to kill them. It was only an intention for now, and Baekhyun didn’t know whether he’d actually be able to carry it out when the time came. One could only wait and see.

~

The first time, Baekhyun was sitting on a bench in the public park and tying his shoelaces. He straightened up, and suddenly the joggers, the dog-walkers, the children playing catch, all blurred and swam away from him. His senses were overtaken by a scent.

A scent that was consonant with his. A scent that matched his candy-shop sweetness.

The intoxicating, slightly bitter scent of chocolate.

It emanated from the man beside him. Baekhyun breathed deep, and the man came into focus. He was pretty. Long hair, slanting eyes, a prominent adam’s apple.

“What’s your name?” asked Baekhyun.

“Sorim,” said the man. He was unconsciously leaning towards Baekhyun. He, too, was drawn by Baekhyun’s scent, a scent so different yet accordant with his own.

“I’m Baekhyun. Notice something?”

Sorim nods. “We match,” he said, then swallowed, hard. Baekhyun watched his adam's apple move and imagined a blade at his throat.

Baekhyun didn’t only mean to murder him. Baekhyun meant to get away with it. His extended lifespan would be meaningless if he squandered it in prison. The whole time that Sorim courted him, Baekhyun was planning how to get rid of him.

Sorim’s murder involved a convoluted method in which Baekhyun went with Sorim to visit his family. It was the first time Baekhyun was meeting Sorim’s family, and it was in Sorim’s parents’ house that Baekhyun killed him, simply so that there would be a variety of other suspects. It was unlikely that Sorim’s own family members would kill him, but it was even more unlikely that his soulmate would kill him. Baekhyun got away with it.

Baekhyun’s murders became easier and speedier once he met Sehun, who, being a vampire, could simply bleed his soulmates dry. The law didn’t get involved where vampires were concerned because vampires were just that powerful. Plus, vampires ran the whole underworld, and they could only do so because law enforcement was hand in glove with them.

Sehun and Baekhyun therefore had a mutually beneficial agreement where Baekhyun would bring every reincarnation of his soulmate to Sehun. There had been plenty of reincarnations so far: Baekhyun didn’t really keep count. Their names and appearances blended together too; Baekhyun didn’t really remember all of them. Only one thing stayed the same through the transience of reincarnations: the scent of his soulmate. Chocolate to his candy.

It had been five years since the last reincarnation. In Baekhyun-time, that was brief, a blink of an eye. He wished for longer intervals between reincarnations, because soulmates were a bother to dispose of when they showed up, but the longest his soulmate had gone between reincarnations was only fifteen years. Sometimes Baekhyun envied Sehun, who didn’t have to deal with any soulmate nonsense and still had immortality in the bag, but Sehun had other annoyances like bloodthirst. Anyway, the current agreement between him and Sehun, and Baekhyun’s current modus operandi suited him well enough.

~

“Wait, for real?” Yixing gaped at Jongin, his sandwich halfway to his mouth. “You… remember your previous lifetimes?”

Jongin nodded, his soft brown bangs moving on his forehead. “The memories sort of flooded into me when I was twenty-four. I thought it happened to everyone when they became of age to cross paths with their soulmate. I was confused when I found out that it’s practically unheard of… I still am confused, to be honest.” 

“But it must be amazing to remember all the times you’ve spent with your soulmate in all your lifetimes together,” said Yixing. “It’s the most romantic thing I’ve ever heard of.”

“I suppose,” said Jongin, smiling. His smile was like bitter chocolate.

Yixing stuffed his face with a chunk of sandwich and chewed, still thoughtful. “There’s one thing that sucks though,” he said after swallowing, “you’ll remember but your soulmate won’t.”

“Maybe,” said Jongin whimsically.

“What did they look like in your previous lifetimes?” Yixing wiggled his eyebrows. “Were they always hot?”

“He was always hot,” said Jongin.

“Huh. They’ve always reincarnated as a guy?”

“They’ve never reincarnated at all,” mumbled Jongin, too low for Yixing to hear.

Yixing demolished the rest of his sandwich, while Jongin dwelled on that unforgettable face, that soft-cheeked smile, the deadliness hidden within. Jongin wanted to hate that face, but whenever he dwelled on it or mumbled that name, Baekhyun, into his pillow, Jongin only felt a throb of pain. Jongin wanted to feel hatred strong enough to wither tongues. But all he ever felt was heartbreak.

~

Baekhyun found himself moving further into the inner circle of the vampires. It was bound to happen, since he was immortal like them (in a manner of speaking). Associating with Sehun unavoidably got him mixed up with other vampires as well, and then one day Heechul, the Sire, the oldest vampire in the country and also the head of the coven, told Sehun he wanted to meet Baekhyun because “we could have a messenger between worlds. Between vampires and humans.”

“You mean you want a spy,” retorted Sehun, “because we’re only lording it over the humans in the shadows and the humans will probably hunt us again if we try to operate out in the open.”

“Maybe that, too,” admitted Heechul. He focused on Sehun, his eyes gleaming. “You might be used to considering humans as useless except as prey, but a human that so determinedly extends his lifespan sounds like he could be of use.”

“I’ll talk to him,” said Sehun carelessly. But it didn’t take much to convince Baekhyun. Baekhyun was ready to cooperate with anyone who would make murder easier for him, and Heechul was the most influential vampire in the country. Having Heechul on his side meant he was practically invincible and could get away with murder even if he was a little careless.

Heechul put him in charge of Club Liminal. That was a nightclub that was used by the vampires as a blood bank: humans ventured there who wanted to experience the bite, or who were already addicted to it. The human capacity for self-destruction was so great that the vampires had long learnt to let the humans come to them, instead of going out to hunt. A vampire drinking from a human sent shivers of debauched delight through their veins, and many humans didn’t care about the fatigue, and risk of death that accompanied that delight.

Baekhyun enjoyed being in charge of Club Liminal. However well he got along with vampires, they just ticked to a different beat, and he liked to balance his time spent in the company of humans. And Baekhyun often craved human heat, human touch. He didn’t need a soulmate, but he had other needs.

Tonight seemed like it would be like any other night at the club. Taut, shining young men twirled on the poles while vampires watched with all sorts of hunger in their eyes. Vampires and humans thronged the dance floor, kissing and biting while the bouncers kept a careful watch to make sure that no vampire took it too far. Bloodthirst and sexual desire were both urges that had to be controlled. The vampires who justified bleeding someone to death were no different from those who tried to justify rape- there was no excuse; and the club generally tried to ensure that the vampire-human dealings took place as safely as such dealings could occur. For instance, people were checked for date rape drugs before they could enter, and vampires who were observed to have no consideration for their prey’s safety were debarred from the club if they didn’t heed warnings. These were rules that Baekhyun encouraged because he knew it would encourage more risk-loving yet self-preserving humans to venture in, and after some initial demurral from the vampires, he got the coven's support too when they realised that Baekhyun's changes were actually bringing in more prey.

The more influential vampires had their own private rooms where they’d take their prey after scouring the dance floor for humans to their taste. The whole vampire-human predator-prey thing was very… sexual. Relationships with skewed power dynamics had a disturbing tendency to turn sexual, as Baekhyun had learned after observation and general life experience.

Vampires of any gender were allowed into Club Liminal, but only humans who did not menstruate were allowed to enter the club and engage in sex or feeding with vampires; this was a club policy. That was why, when a sudden stillness passed through all the vampires in the club and they turned to stare at the newcomer who had just entered the club, Baekhyun thought they had perhaps scented menstrual blood. Usually the bouncers would have stopped such a person at the entrance itself, so Baekhyun was surprised. But when he decided to go check the newcomer out for himself, he realised that the vampires had gone so still because they were on high alert. Some of them were eyeing the newcomer with open hostility.

When he was close enough to do so, Baekhyun scrutinised the stranger. He was gorgeous, his toned figure on display in a black crop top with fitted leather pants. He had the loveliest lips Baekhyun had ever seen- Baekhyun wanted to kiss him on sight.

But as soon as he was close enough, Baekhyun realised something was strange. This man… he didn’t have a scent. And yet, he clearly wasn’t a vampire. Baekhyun had never met a human without a scent. Perhaps this was why the vampires were wary of the new guy.

“Who are you?” said Baekhyun, looking into the man’s eyes.

“My name is Jongin.”

“Sorry if this is rude, but why don’t you have a scent?” said Baekhyun bluntly.

Jongin’s eyes fluttered. “I don’t know.”

Baekhyun frowned.

“Truthfully, I’m a werewolf,” said Jongin quickly, as though the words stumbled out of his mouth. “But I don’t have a pack. I couldn’t stay in the pack because I don’t have a scent.”

“Okay,” said Baekhyun, although his mind was in a whirl, “but why are you here? Your kind isn’t allowed here.”

“Won’t you allow me as an exception? I’m not going to turn, or cause trouble.”

“But why do you want to be here?”

Jongin pouted, and Baekhyun thought,  _ He’s a werewolf, all right. He’s got the puppy eyes perfected.  _ “I just… the name of this club,” said Jongin, “liminal is what I am. I’m not a real werewolf because no pack will have me but I’m not _not_ a werewolf either, despite being scentless, because I can turn and… I need a place. Can’t I stay here?” The whine in his voice was just like a puppy’s.

And Baekhyun knew that if he decided to let Jongin stay, the vampires would have a problem with it. The vampires would be able to tell that Jongin was a werewolf; they had primordial, eternal instincts and didn’t have to rely on scent alone. 

Baekhyun knew that letting Jongin stay would not go down well with anyone else- and yet he wanted to keep Jongin by him. Baekhyun liked puppies.

Baekhyun cupped Jongin’s chin, drawing closer until his breath ghosted Jongin’s lips. “If I let you stay, what will you give me in return?” 

“I have only myself to offer,” replied Jongin simply. “You can have me.”

Baekhyun smiled- and he looked as predatory as a vampire. "You have yourself a deal, Jongin."

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is the first chapter, and there will be more to come. I'd love to hear any thoughts and talk to you in the comments!


End file.
